The former two-term MP died at the Sarawak Heart Centre in Kota Samarahan from heart failure, Dayak Daily reported.

William was a native court judge before venturing into politics and joining Parti Rakyat Sarawak.

He was first elected to the Lubok Antu parliamentary seat in the 2008 general election which he won with a 1,610-vote majority.

He defended the seat for PRS in the 2013 general election with a higher majority of 4,091 votes, defeating his closest contender, Larry Sng, the current Parti Bangsa Malaysia president.

William, a former PRS Supreme Council member, was sacked from the party in April 2018 for expressing dissatisfaction over being dropped as a candidate in the 2018 general election.

He joined the now-defunct Parti Sarawak Bersatu in 2019 and contested for the Batang Ai seat in the 2021 Sarawak state election, which he lost to PRS’s Malcom Mussen Lamoh by 738 votes.

In November 2022, he quit PSB and pledged his support for the ruling Gabungan Parti Sarawak. PSB has since been dissolved after its members joined the GPS component, the Progressive Democratic Party.